lore

In the time of great suffering
The lands boiled
The skies darkened.
Water turned to acid, food warped and spoiled
And every kind of unnatural, despicable creature
Poured forth across the lands
As a horde of malice.
The tide swept all before it,
They weren’t few, but countless,
The hearts of those who saw them stopped.
The Myahet were driven before them
Scattered to the four winds.
Among the daemons were
The Shapeshifter and The Decaying,
Terrifying brutes and powerful sorcerers,
Armed with iron chains and flying disks
Who didn’t spare at all
The souls of their enemies.
With these two also arrived
Writhing, bloodthirsty creatures
Of every shape and hideous kind.
The greatest of them all
Was Foloy the Skullbringer
A red giant wearing heavy iron coats.
You should have seen Foloy -
He was ready to pounce like a sabretooth tiger,
His fearsome axes were as big as a cauldron
His red hide impenetrable,
He had huge horns and ragged wings.
The destructive infidels
Shouted with rage.
Receiving the order from their khan,
The daemons set out
From the vast Wasteland.
They had living chariots, crushers,
Hellhounds and pestilent beasts,
These teeming infidels
Had numerous daemonic engines as well.
The teeming legions marched,
A thick forest, a relentless flood,
Waving their spotted banners,
They weren’t few, but many.
None could oppose the spawn-kin
Until the great Tsanas rallied
The surviving Myahet at Home Peak,
And charged with them into terrible battle.
The mountain ran with blood and corpses
The daemons were so many.
But such was the strength of mighty Tsanas,
He slew The Shapeshifter
He slew The Decaying,
And countless more.
Then did huge Foloy, the Skullbringer,
Issue a great challenge.
Tsanas, Khan of Khans,
Strode across the battle to meet him.
The red giant buried his axes
In Tsanas’ belly.
But even in death, the hero
Took Foloy’s head with his hammer.
The daemons fled in terror,
And the Myahet pursued.

Ogres are among the toughest of all creatures. Their brutal nomadic life weeds out the weak, while the strongest, having weathered every type of hardship imaginable, rise to become Khans. The only thing that exceeds their endurance is their appetite. Ogres prize food above all else, and an Ogre mercenary force has been known to eat its employers into bankruptcy.

Still, Ogres can be reasoned with, provided you respect their traditions. In the days of the greatest Khan of Khans, Ogres walked as masters of Augea, or so their campfire lore speaks. Even now, their reach encompasses much of the Silk Road, and so they are a trading force to be reckoned with.

The Steel Road is an endeavour of titanic proportions, and it is believed to have been prompted by centuries of bitter clashes between ogre caravans crossing the Blasted Plain and Infernal legions seeking to secure trade routes. However, the dwarves of that region have ever been secretive with their intentions, and who can say if their true purpose is so simple. After all, Infernal ambitions have changed the world once before.

Where is the domain of the Ogre Khans? Can they be found in other regions? The Ogre Khans control large swathes of Augea, in and around the Sky Mountains. The Silk Road passes through much of their territory, allowing for trade between Tsuandan and Vetian nations. However, like all peoples, Ogres can be found beyond this one location. Ogres often find work as mercenaries. Contingents can be found fighting for all manner of employers, where the deal is right. They also hold outposts around the Sea of Gods, to facilitate the caravans trekking the long Silk Road and arriving in Avras or other Vetian cities.

In the heights of the Sky Mountains and across the plains of Augea, Ogres exert a magical influence which is anything but subtle. The Khans care not for the trickery of witches, the foretelling of seers, nor the balance of cosmologists. Theirs is a magic of fire, might and divine intervention. They bellow at the sky, call down the fury of their deities, turning ogre skin to stone and setting whole peaks alight. Even magic bends before the brute strength of the ogre and their shamans.

If there were ever large numbers of ogres in Vetia, they were dislodged by the elder empires of the Golden Age. It is said that ogres consider their true home to be the great rolling grasslands that cover the vastness of central Augea: a mighty Steppe of which only a tiny portion - the Makhar - remains this side of the Wasteland.

Before the Wasteland’s creation, however, it is known that the ogres once ruled a giant empire, perhaps the largest in history, spanning the greater part of Augea and Vetia, united under their famed Qenghet Khan - though records indicate it later fractured into five still-enormous kingdoms. The two westernmost were hardest hit by the Ages of Ruin and the Inferno, with the survivors uniting under the legendary hero-saviour Tsanas, who (according to myth) lead his people to the mountain fortress where they finally defeated the plague of daemons unleashed by the magical conflagration. A troubled history, to be sure, but nevertheless a source of great pride among the tribes we see today.

Your magnificent excellency,
The ogres are mercenaries, plain and simple. They may not seek out violence if there is no need (war costs money), but neither will they hesitate to employ it to secure their trade interests. Their existence in the mountains, where nothing grows, depends on a monopoly of the wealth that travels through them. Any substance that moves east or west in this world - unless it takes the Steel Road - incurs the ogre tithe. Many are the great leaders of Sagarikadesha who have attempted to move their goods past or around the mountains without negotiating - all have lost in blood what they would not pay in gold.

If you seek to avoid these wretched middlemen, there is only one option - and that is to pay up for an ocean voyage departing the southern ports. Even this brings risk of reprisal if the ogres catch wind - and the Highborn leverage their control of the seas no less ruthlessly than the khans do that of the land. Remember that the Khaganate founded by Bayalag, which ruled Sagarika for several centuries, was originally intended simply to ensure the continued use of his trade routes. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that we could see another Sagarikan khanate in our lifetimes.

I did not ask to be orphaned, and neither did I seek the generosity of the khans. In hindsight, it was an act of stunning magnanimity to take in this helpless human child and raise her as one of their own. I have spent my life with the ogres, whom you call barbarians, learning their proud and ancient customs.

Almost everything you believe about them is either fabrication or exaggeration. For example, there is not one ogre culture but two. Those numerous tribes who continue to live the nomadic lives of their ancient ancestors on the steppe, and those who embraced the legacy of Tsanas, fortifying the mountains to dominate the trade that passes through them on the Silk Road.The difference is enormous - everything from religion to economics changes when you leave the mountain for the steppe, and yet most humans prefer to remain ignorant of any nuance.

Sacred is the mountain
with seven stones. Umi!
Seven tuskers we
offered up, Umi!
We ask for a rain, Umi!
We ask for a feast, Umi!
We are your children, Umi!
We feed our mouths, Umi!
We feed our souls, Umi!
Let life be fine. Umi!

Yeah, I worked the silk road. It’s true what they say: never be in debt to an ogre. I’ve seen men left to die on freezing mountainsides because their legs...well, they weren’t just broken. It’s not just the money. Ogres really bloody hate debt, any debt. Once offered an ogre on my caravan a sip from my hip flask, and he insisted on giving me a coin for it - this was a guy I was pals with. Still, they’re good blokes, most of them, once you get to know them and you don’t owe them anything. Never laughed so hard as round an ogre campfire.

Another time, the big man - khan, they call ’em - who was protecting our convoy, he was getting trouble from a rival, this other tribe trying to muscle in on his turf. The way they told it, our guy traded him a crate of firewood, and hid a sack of gemstones inside. The other khan was so ashamed at having accidentally taken this debt, he threw himself off a cliff. You think I’m making it up, but you’ve never met a mountain ogre. Wonderful, crazy bastards they are.

He wished me to accept the services of the Sons of Glauca - a mercenary company known to employ ogres. I laughed in his face. They may be the finest fighters in all of Arcalea, but I will not have savages in my employ! Ogres are the worst of barbarians. Brutish, nasty, fat. They spend their lives in tents, rolling in mud, stuffing their faces with raw meat til the juices course down their own corpulescence. They’re cannibals, every one of them, and man-eaters too. They have no gods and care for no fine thing in this world beyond their next bag of gold, feast or rut. I would not work with ogres if they were the last living creatures in this realm or the next.